Vocalist Mikael Akerfeldt Reportedly Leaves Bloodbath

Loudwire.com has posted a news story online reporting that Opeth front man Mikael Akerfeldt has left death metal supergroup Bloodbath. Opeth's latest album "Heritage" (reviewed here) saw a change in style for the band, switching entirely to clean vocals and prog rock.

Loudwire.com reports:

When we asked Akerfeldt — who by his own admittance has recently been struggling to maintain the power and tone of his screaming — if that would affect future Bloodbath projects, the vocalist dropped the news on us.

“I’m not in Bloodbath,” says Akerfeldt. “They have a new singer, which I can’t say who it is. Bloodbath for me was never a serious project, it was just something I did for fun. We did a few songs on the last North American tour, we did two songs at the very last show because we were touring with Katatonia, so the whole Bloodbath band was there. It’s still fun you know? But I think that some of the other guys in Bloodbath want to take it to the next level, which I don’t really want to do because I’m so busy anyways.”

He continued, “It doesn’t really have to do with anything with my screaming vocals, it’s just that it’s not a progressive project for me. It’s just paying tribute to death metal and I’ve done it for such a long time. And when it stops being fun, I don’t really want to participate. We do things so rarely it’s always been fun. The shows we’ve done have been fun, but I don’t feel the need to do it.”

Argh. This is annoying. I do like Opeth's last slab of goodness, but seriously? Leaving Bloodbath? Who's going to replace him? Probably someone who can't growl like him and sounds like a kitten. Ah well.